I grew up in Omak, and north-central Washington has never stopped being home. Even now, living on the west side, I feel a small jolt of pride when the rest of the country catches on to what apple country already knew, whether it is Washington State University’s work behind the Cosmic Crisp, Tonasket’s own Kait Thornton educating the country through social media as @applegirlkait or seeing Washington apples represented far beyond the orchards where they were grown.
So it unsettled me how quietly the rest of Washington took the news this summer that one of our own had landed in bankruptcy court.
In June, Brewster Heights Packing and Orchards, known as Gebbers Farms, filed for Chapter 11. Gebbers is a sixth-generation operation more than a century old, one of Washington’s largest apple and cherry growers, packers and shippers. It grows apples on more than 10,000 acres, including one of the largest contiguous apple orchards in the world, and entered bankruptcy carrying roughly a quarter-billion in debt.
Outside the trade press, the story got little attention. A few years ago, when an aircrew from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island drew a questionable pattern in the sky over Okanogan County, it went viral. Google the two events and the difference in coverage is stark.
I should be clear about what I am not: I have no connection to the Gebbers family and I do not work in fruit. I am not an economist, I have interviewed no one, and I am not assigning blame.
But the numbers are worth looking at.
In 2020, Washington’s minimum wage was $13.50 an hour, and most agricultural workers were exempt from overtime. Today, minimum wage is $17.13, and agricultural overtime begins after 40 hours. A 55-hour week at minimum wage cost $742.50 in 2020. Today, it costs about $1,071. Same 55 hours, about 44% more.
At the same time, the value of the apple has not kept pace with the cost of producing it. Tariffs, weather, production, global competition and markets all influence what growers receive; some within Washington’s control, many not.
A grower cannot simply raise prices to cover the difference. Apples compete in national and global markets. The market does not care what it cost to grow that apple in Brewster or Wenatchee when growers in New York or Chile chase the same customers. That makes the cumulative cost of operating in Washington worth understanding.
This keeps getting sorted into political teams, and I refuse to accept it. This is not an argument that farmworkers are paid too much. They do difficult work and deserve to be paid fairly. It is also not an argument that every struggling orchard can blame Olympia. The question is simpler: Are we paying enough attention to whether the economics still work?
We on the west side spend plenty of time worrying whether major employers will keep investing here. We should. But those companies can move. An orchard cannot.
You cannot move 80 years of trees, packing houses, cold storage and generations of knowledge to a friendlier state. Gebbers shows the scale of what is at stake. More than 10,000 acres of apples is a whole system: workers, truckers, warehouses, suppliers, small businesses. When something that large falters, the consequences do not stop at the orchard gate.
Washington is the largest apple-producing state. This is not a quaint regional industry we preserve because apples look good on postcards. As Washington comes together for the Apple Cup this September, maybe we should spend a little time thinking about the apple itself, the communities that grow it and what we can do to help keep them viable. If apples are going to remain part of Washington’s identity, we owe the people behind them more than silence.
So start with curiosity. Put labor costs, commodity prices, tariffs, energy, water, transportation and global competition on the same table. Understand what is happening, then decide what Washington can do about it.
Apple country belongs to Washington. We should care enough to understand what is happening to it, and be willing to do what it takes to support the communities quietly fighting to preserve an industry that remains a cornerstone of our still-great state.
